Posted by
Playful Walrus on Thursday, April 17, 2008 3:45:06 PM
Here’s an example of ridiculous planning and execution in public transportation due, in large part, to inefficient government and political power struggles.
Sprawling Los Angeles County has perpetually jammed freeways, and a very limited mass transit light rail system run by the MTA, which also runs the busses. Part of that system, the Green Line, runs 20 miles, but does not stop at the nearest Metrolink station (Metrolink being a heavier rail system also running through neighboring counties, and NOT part of the MTA). It also stops just far enough away from LAX. Part of the problem is that the MTA Board and Los Angeles World Airports couldn’t work things out.
The MTA Board is comprised mostly of Los Angeles County Supervisors and City of L.A. Councilmembers and mayoral appointees, and elected officials from some other local cities.
LAWA is a subsidiary, for lack of a better word, of the City of L.A. government, though it also owns an runs an airport that is in an entirely different county.
Yet the MTA’s Green Line still doesn’t go to the LAWA’s LAX.
Gene Maddus of the Daily Breeze writes:
A proposal to extend the Green Line to LAX overcame its first hurdle in Sacramento this week, when it passed through the Senate Transportation Committee.
The bill, by Sen. Jenny Oropeza, still faces significant obstacles: most notably, the likely opposition of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
That’s right. The MTA is against the bill. Why? Well, read on.
Oropeza's bill, SB 1722, would create a separate construction authority with an independent mandate to build a two-mile link to Los Angeles International Airport.
The MTA has opposed such efforts in the past - most recently when Assemblyman Ted Lieu proposed the same idea last year - because a new entity would compete with the MTA for funding and control of the county's transit agenda. Lieu's bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee last summer.
Why create a new organization? Glad you asked.
A construction authority could help clear any political hurdles by bringing the MTA, LAWA, the county and the city of Los Angeles together on a governing board with a common purpose.
Even if it happens, it will take a long time before it is up and running. Meanwhile, I’ll stick with my automobile.